The Rules of the Gods
by Witchfall
Summary: All her life, she tried to keep her Clan safe. She failed, she think, because she loves a human man. (War Table spoilers for Lavellan story.)


_(sort of experimental, may not make a lot of sense, I don't claim to be the picasso of writing, etc., etc…_

_Was inspired because my Lavellan was in a romance with Cullen and it was choosing him for the war table that triggered the deaths of her clan this time around. The game didn't provide any sort of emotional reaction to this so I am abstractly making up for it I guess?)_

* * *

Willing disbelief, cold like ice. It emanates from the walls of Skyhold, always cold, always.

This paper in her hands. A report, picked up from the table—_No! Aeri, give that to me!_—and a panicked look from the paper to Cullen and back and forth. They had deliberated on this, hadn't they? This is…the one…the mission in Wycome. He'd advised that they move in immediately—that they defend her clan and send their own forces in, despite warnings from the diplomat. She did not dare risk their lives. His concern was almost as strong as her own, and she appreciated him so much in that moment, _so much _that he seemed to understand. It was his idea, and he'd never failed her, never would fail her.

_Please, Aeri._

He touches her wrists with the tips of his fingers, as if afraid to touch her. Maybe because she already read them, the three words that mattered. Maybe because she was staring at the page, and those three words, over and over and over, waiting to wake up.

Clan Lavellan. Destroyed.

* * *

Cullen and Leliana shout after her. Josephine whispers sharp notes.

Her lungs fill with knives. Porcelain numbness and the fiery sea-wash of grief battle just beneath her heart.

She is followed by silent stares. Her eyes sting. Maybe she is already crying. She doesn't know. She can't tell from their looks, exactly. She is frozen by their stares. She must compose herself, she must be strong, be their Herald, their Keeper—

It's only when she realizes she is struggling to see Varric's panicked form, standing next to her, hand on her arm—_Hey, Princess, hey are you all right?_—that she knows tears are falling quickly.

_Why can't I move fast enough? Why can't I…?_

She is blubbering these words, extricating herself from the forming crowd—_Our Lady Herald! Something has happened, what is going on?_—when Cullen opens the door behind her. She is shocked into movement from the door's slam, and turns to see his grief-stricken, worry-lined face. Only then can she stumble away, to the stairs to her quarters, away, away, away away away away please by the Creators and the Maker and any gods that exist, please, just take me away from here.

* * *

Would jumping out of her window atone for this? Drowning herself? Asking Cassandra to execute her? Was it too late for that—had everything changed so much, that Cassandra would deny her this one request, even though Cassandra herself had wanted it so badly at first?

All these things we want, turning in on themselves. You cannot be both Herald and protector. You cannot lead these shems and protect your people.

You cannot love a shemlen man and not expect to be punished for it.

She curls in on herself on the cold floor. A furious knocking. Everything is cold, always.

"Aeri, please, my love, I beg you, open this door. Please."

She cannot find the words, but she does get up. She drags herself up off the floor, shivering, and moves to open the door.

Her whole body sings out, willing to bury itself in him. No. No. Do not let him enter. But she opens the door, useless and shattered, face splotched with tears and slathered with wet, stringy hair. Cullen takes her up in his arms almost the instant the door reveals her person, his hand cradling her head, squeezing her so tightly to him that she can't bring herself to move. She really would die if she moved. She deserved it. But he did not deserve to be here to see it.

"I should leave," she sobs into his chest. Her arms remain tightly bound to her sides, some shred of determination left. "I need to go. I have to—"

"No!"

The power of his refusal shakes her. It awakens some protective instinct because the pain rings out, strong as a bell. He pulls back and takes up her hand, shaking, squeezing it hard between his calloused palms, holding it to his forehead as if praying. Everything is cold. Skyhold is a frozen heart.

"I…I gave the command. I did this to you. I said we should have…"

His words can't come out. He is crying.

"I killed your family. My orders killed your family."

* * *

All emotions spring from broken places now. She is shocked by her disembodied anger. An anger as if possessed. Anger does not come to this scholar of the Way of Peace so easily until this moment, where it pours out of her mouth like dripping fire.

"I gave the order! I gave it! I failed my one duty as First…to keep the People safe…I never should have come here…I never should have loved you…I never should have survived."

His jaw shakes while he stares down at her. He seems so much older than her, sometimes, but then the eyes give it away. The moisture on his face from his own tears. The slight shine of his lip. Another young soul, still here, in front of her.

Anger embodies her poorly. It asks her to make a choice she cannot make. It's not supposed to happen this way, it was never supposed to happen this way…

"I will love you, always," she says. "I cannot stop."

* * *

_Oh Maker, please, I would do anything to take this pain from you._ She hears these words before her legs give in. He scoops her up in his arms and tucks her into the blankets on her bed. She never liked the bed until this moment. She feels her identity slip away from her. Is she even Dalish, now?

All her curiosity about the world beyond her simple clan life…this is what she gets?

He lies down beside her and curls his whole body around her. His legs wrap around her legs, his arms protect her chest and shoulders. He moves her hair with his fingers, kisses the nape of her neck.

_What if you aren't real? What if you are part of my nightmare? What if you die?_

_I am real. I am here._

_But gone, so easily._

* * *

In the end, as night falls and he still does not leave, it is grief that teaches her the most.

The gods killed her people to punish her for loving a human man. Or perhaps they did it out of spite, to punish her for her title, her Heraldry, her Inquisition.

Or perhaps it was not them at all. But then what was the use of them, anyway?

She would bear the pain until her very last breath, until she dies and enters the beyond. Maybe then. They would all find her, her clan, and call out to her. Why did you let this happen to us? Why?

It was a Keeper's job to remember. Even the painful things. Even the faces of spiteful gods and dead clan children.

But she looks at Cullen, feels in the way he holds her how he would turn into a thousand-year stone wall, destined to feel nothing, if only to keep her safe. She is cushioned by him—surviving, partly, because of him, in the face of pointless loss.

And then she realizes the truths of the gods—none of them matching, all of them correct. It is the only way she can reconcile this human man with her old Elvhen life, a way out of the flattening darkness, a path where she can still hold his hand, look into his young-souled face—

1) The gods are wrong.

2) The gods do not exist.

3) They two, therein, with their split hearts bursting with pain and love, are the gods, beautiful and powerful and sad, as they ever will be.


End file.
